Abolition of smoking areas in the stations run by Tōkyū Corporation

Smokers basically cannot smoke in trains, which is well-known by everyone. If someone smokes, the train may soon be filled with the smoke and others will start to be unable to breathe in fresh air and annoyed by it. Then how about smoking anywhere outside? Well, the answer is no.

Where can smokers smoke?

In most stations "smoking areas" are set on the platforms, and smokers are asked to smoke there. However, though the platforms are mostly in the open air, smoking areas are still set in some places. It means smokers must be isolated from places where there are non-smokers. Given that there are some people waiting in a line on the platform, if one of them starts to smoke, the smoke floats through the air and then directly strikes others beside or behind him/her. Then they may also breathe in the smoke. Generally speaking smoking is bad for the health, so can you let smokers keep smoking nonchalantly while other people cannot escape from breathing in the smoke?

Let's look in the stations of Tōkyū's. It's surprising that there are no smoking areas on the platforms. Actually, Tōkyū, together with Odakyū Electric Railway and Tōbu Railway, started to forbid smoking on every platform and in every station on May 1st, 2003. To achieve this measure against smoking, Tōkyū removed all smoking areas from its platforms. Tōkyū had previously forbidden smoking only in some stations that are underground or usually crowded, and had placed smoking areas in other stations (Tōkyū 2003). However, a complete ban on smoking had been increasingly requested by passengers, and the "Health Promotion Law" would have obliged all managers of facilities to prevent passive smoking, so Tōkyū decided to forbid smoking in all areas of its stations (Tōkyū 2003).

What's wrong about smoking areas?

If you are a smoker and you always want to smoke in a station, you will surely complain about the removal of smoking areas. Some smokers may think that as people only smoke in smoking areas, no other people will be annoyed by the smoke. Smoking areas should divide between smoke and fresh air, so why are all smoking areas removed?

That's strictly concerned with passive smoking. It's also mentioned in the Health Promotion Law (2002). Passive smoking, also called secondhand smoking, means breathing in the smoke from someone else's cigarette indoors or in pre-indoor environment (Health Promotion Law, article 25). On a platform, passive smoking happens even if the only smoking that takes place is in small areas where smoking is allowed. The smoke, mentioned above, floats across the air and travels some meters, and then someone who is far from the smoking area soon breathes in it. Anti-smoking people really hate this situation, rather they mostly feel as if they were squirted with something very dirty. In addition, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) researched on attitudes toward smoking, and 64.9% of people answered that they were annoyed by someone's smoking. The research also indicates 79.8% of people who have never smoke feel annoyances, and even 54.9% of people who smoke less than ten cigarettes a day are irritated by the smoke (MHLW 2002).

If passive smoking happens to children, I firmly warn stop smoking. This is worse than to let children smoke, because they can't escape from breathing in sidestream smoke, which is more dangerous to their health than mainstream smoke. Medical.com (2003) shows some harmful substances included in mainstream smoke and sidestream smoke, and the comparison between both smokes. These tables surely signify how sidestream smoke is detrimental to not only smokers but also non-smokers, and also how passive smoking is evidently terrible for non-smokers, because though they shouldn't smoke, they can gain these harmful substances more than smokers do.

Carcinogens [unit: nanogram per cigarette] (Medical.com 2003)

Other harmful substances [unit: milligram per cigarette] (Medical.com 2003)

Sidestream smoke has more harmful substances than those of mainstream smoke, so continual passive smoking can have a worse influence on health than smoking does. Smokers should consider the implications of letting other people breathe in their smoke which is at least poisonous. MHLW (2002) says some studies report that passive smoking during infancy helps increasing the risks of getting cancer. One of the studies, which investigated 438 cancer patients whose ages were between fifteen and twenty-nine, shows if their fathers are smokers, the risk of getting cancer increases 1.5 times. What's worse, as the quantity of non-smoker's household exposure to passive smoking defines smoker-years -- the number of household smokers multiplied by the years the non-smoker have lived together with them, if the smoker-years during childhood and adolescence is twenty-five or more, the risk of lung cancer becomes 2.1 times as much as the case of twenty-five or less. Dr. Kondo (2003) also points out that children who are exposed to passive smoking have increased risk:

• Bronchitis
• Pneumonia
• Bronchial asthma
• Otitis media
• Stunted growth and subnormal intelligence

Especially he insists that in view of the damage that it does to children, passive smoking is oppression of children. "By this point, to smoke in front of children should be stopped" (Kondo 2003).

For the prevention against passive smoking, smoking should not be permitted in at least all public areas. The removal of smoking areas may also remove the smoke of cigarettes, and this can provide the safety and welfare of many passengers and especially kids. And when you smoke somewhere, including a station, just think whether your smoke contributes toward endangering someone else's health or not. If not -- if no one else breathes your smoke -- you have the right to smoke!

Works cited:
Tōkyū Corporation (2003) "Tokyu news 2003-04-21"
Kondo, Hisashi (nd) "Kondō shōnika īn hōmu pēji" (Kondo pediatrics clinic home page)
Medical.com (2003) "Judō kitsuen ni tsuite" (About passive smoking)
Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (2002) "Bun-en kōka hantei kijun sakutei kentō kai hōkoku-sho gaiyō" (The outline report of the investigative commission for formulating the standard of the effect of separation of smoking areas)

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